Semester 2; Life drawing. Zoo Assignment

Going to the zoo was a very exciting trip to finish our first year at University, life drawing has to be my favourite time during the week in class, I learn a copius amount of new information I will take with me to help improve my art and animation techniques.

This trip was accompanied by an Assignment to compleate, this assignment would be to “create an original character using 4 attributes to a certain species around the zoo and draw various poses to show it would translate into an animation or it would be structured to animate.

As we walked around the Zoo we took various photos to explore and have reference photos of our characters we will be creating, during this time I thought about what I wanted in the character and what would translate well as an original character.

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All pictures Taken by myself. 

Now as I finished up around 12:30 taking photos and wandering around thinking of what animals i would choose, unfortunately for my final designs I could not photograph a couple of them, although you can tell which animals I had based the character off of.

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Art (c) Myself 

I wanted to have a diverse amount of animals drawn in my sketchbook for this project, I wanted to have a vast amount of drawings for my main character, I also wanted to make sure I could translate that the animal actually looked like the species I was convaying onto the page, so it would be easy to read I took 4 of a certain species.

Now for the final of the though process, I ended up coming to terms with two mixed species, and I liked them both, although I only ended up choosing one, inwhich you can view here;

Art and Designs by myself.

My first design is a Boar, rabbit, lemur and barn owl cross; I wanted to make a sort of rebel female character, I really liked how the Boars at the zoo all had different hairstyles, so i wanted to convey that in the images.
The top photos of the second page is a cross between a Girraffe, Meerkat, Seal and a Baby Goat. For this design i wanted to have an aquatic yet land mammal species, I liked the head of a girraffe with the size and stature of a Meerkat, the reflexes would mean this species is a very swift and cautios creature.

Overall I enjoyed working on this Assignment because it was in my zone of comfort, I enjoy drawing anthropomorphic animals and creating character designs to use for myself and to draw in general, I hope I get to do this more often for my projects!

Life drawing; Red sketches

Unfortunatly  due to a prolonged illness I had, I had been requested by my doctor that I would not be able to attend Uni, as I would then be in hospital and recovering at home, As I missed out on a few classes of Life drawing I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the final weeks of the second semester which i have compiled them all here, during these weeks we where practising our walk cycles.

 

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as you can see by the walk cycles above We where told that there was movement like a song note in every move or sway the body would make; and now learning this is absolutely right, when studying the form of a walk I began to learn things I had not once known before when drawing a cycle; every part of the body moves in a way where it looks like a dance on the paper; I love drawing the sketches close together as I can then see the process of the Man walking from one end to the other, forward and back; side to side; it really was a motivating experince for myself to accomplish; i felt coming back to working on my anatomy after being off for so long; i was a little rusty with a few of my poses compaired to my final works last semester; although I definately see improvement in my form and structure to my Life drawings. I am very impressed with my over all improvement and will hopefully have an Animated walk cycle up shortly once I gather the accurate information.

=============================Extra Work====================================

Once listening to all the information and studies given in the “Animators survival guide” i took it upon myself to do my own walk cycle; the reference of the walking man I used was this youtube video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBkJY86tZRE&list=PLTqnwrldLtRB8XRLfJKQZ3RFupxJ_QspE&index=0&ab_channel=endlessreference They are a very good relieable source for walking, running and jogging references for animators alike. It helped me alot while I was unwell and still recovering to help produce content.

Also during this process I created a Pinterest board full of references and other inspirations to help me stay motivated; you can see that board here;

Working with Inks

For this Life drawing lesson we where told to bring ink pots and flat headed brushes, upon walking into the room I was quite nervous as I previously had no knowlede in working with only inks and brushes, now coming out of the class I had realised a new love for a whole new medium, I had worked previously with pen and ink but never brush work and raw ink, It was a tricky task to overcome. Firstly we warmed up per usual as we do every class before we went straight into drawing with our inks, I started off with pencil to have a test at different ways of sketching and after I realised I preffered blocking in shapes with the conté pastels; it as a very exciting lesson after I gotten used to the initial inking, We where told to use very minimalistic strokes and no quick sketch lines, this especially was difficult for me as I am still very guilty of scribbling while I sketch as I have always preffered messy sketches compaired to natural strokes, although looking at my work now improved I can definately see where the inks have taken course within my learning and understanding of how to use them with the brush properly.

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During this lesson I learned alot on how to produce a single line without going very sketchy in my style, I still have a long way to go in terms of learning to work with my Anatomy and study more on the structure of the human form, I will definately be working with Inks a lot more in my spare time.

Head Turn around

For homework we where asked to produce a Headshot turn around of either a real life person or a character, Due to circumstances with family I chose to do some of my personal characters I have.

Firstly I chose Lulu, Looking back I definately would have chosen an easier character to start with, I personally ran into trouble animating her ears in a smooth straight movement due to the curve and flop, I would have then changed and added no collar or kept the collar consistent throughout the scene and made sure I was aware of the risks of drawing her with said collar, as you can see her accessory moves and shifts in size and thickness and I would have now looked back and opted without it. But for my first attempt I was pretty impressed with it at the time.

For a Bigger resolution for the image above Click – Here

As you can see from this turn around I feel I had taken my class Critisism and took it for good, I listened to what should be improved upon and added that to this piece here; I firstly chose a more simpler character, instead of a collar I kept him simple. I took off his hair as that would also be hard to correlate to an animated drawing. I kept the style simplistic and cartoonish rather than my first time producing a turn around, over all with this I am impressed with my quick improvement I had made, I also heavily looked into researching the “Animators survival guide” and am currently studying from it to help improve my work even further.

To view the larger image click – Here 

Semester 2 Life drawing; Hands and Feet

 

During this week of life drawing, we where to practise drawing hands and feet, we learnt that the feet can be easily broken into a upside down boat shape to help us grasp the ideal shape, feet for me where very difficult along with hands, I find myself struggling a great deal with them when coming to draw or even prepair to draw them, I find the initial shape and structure very complicated to grasp down onto the page; Although this class definately taught me a few tips and tricks on how they can easily be broken down.

 

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The drawings above showcase what we did this class, I can definately see various improements since starting the first sketch, although nearing the end I definately found myself in an uncomfortable zone as I started to feel unconfident with myself and my handiness to draw the thighs, legs and feet, although I felt a few pages on this specific day has been nearest one of my best works during life drawing, I am very proud at some of the life figures in this lesson.

=================================Extra work================================

For this week seeing my added frustration in the class trying to get a certain foot or leg even hand angle or pose right, I wanted to attempt to do extra practise work to show my findings and improvements.

 

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As you can see from the images above I feel once I warmed myself up, I gained a sense of confidence, I also looked into American Animator and Illustratior Glen Keane on his process on how he draws hands and feet, He has been a huge influence on my work thus far in my artist life as he has worked on some of my favurite movies throughout my childhood, I am very intruiged on his intricate details on his muscles and specifc placements he poses them;  to me his work stands out in his hand drawings, the thumbs especially are very stylised and I hope to take this learning on board for my future.